Tanzania has in the recent weeks faced the wrath of Kenyans on Twitter (KOT). The scuffle started when the government of Tanzania deported former Justice Minister Ms Martha Karua, former Chief Justice Will Mutunga and other activists who had gone to show solidarity for Opposition leader Tundu Lissu who was facing charges in court for calling for reforms before elections.
Meanwhile two activists, Boniface Mwangi of Kenya was tortured and Agather Athuaire of Uganda was tortured and raped while being held incommunicado. Both activists were dropped near their respective borders.
Tanzanian parliament debate the events
The Tanzanian MPs took it upon themselves to defend the actions of their president Mama Samia Suluhu Hassan. One after the other took the podium to make their vitriolic rants against foreign activists coming to Tanzania to ‘disturb peace’. They said that their Gen Z are well behaved unlike those in Kenya who attacked their own parliament and caused destruction.
Pandani MP Maryam Omar Said stood and stated that she does not understand why Martha Karua was deported to Kenya without being punished. She said that the mistake should not be repeated in the future.
“We made a mistake by sending Martha Karua back there, and this mistake should not happen again here. How can someone come from there and bring their ignorance here and then supposedly be returned safe and sound?” said Maryam Omar Said, Tanzanian MP.
Member of Parliament for Geita Constituency, Joseph Kasheku Musukuma accused Kenyans of interfering with Tanzania’s internal affairs and also stated that English language is not a priority for Tanzania. Kenyans had contrary opinions, they demonstrated that the MP has primary school level of education as his highest level of education. This was recorded on Tanzania’s parliament website. Joseph Kasheku Musukuma studied for Country Program Evaluation (CPE) which is equivalent to KCPE in Kenya between 1979 and 1986. Based on the publicly available information the MP is a standard 7 graduate. Shocking. There was no further information on the website indicating that the MP went beyond CPE.
The requirements for one to be eligible to vie for MP seat in Tanzania is to be 21 years of age and able to read and write in Kiswahili and English. That is it.
One specific Tanzania MP said that there is nothing Tanzanians can learn from Kenya. The KOTs went further and dug into the education levels of the Tanzanian MPs, they found out that most of the MPs have low levels of education. Most of the MPs have primary and secondary level of education. Kenyans are good at digging out for information on the internet.
Tanzanian parliament was forced to remove all CVs of MPs from the website because a lot of harmful information was being found in those documents. This is also how Kenya’s Gen Z found the personal phone numbers of the MPs who spoke ill of Kenya. Each and every one of them received ” greetings” from Kenya’s Gen Z’s. They would not bear the volume of messages and calls they were receiving from Kenyans asking them to behave well. I agree that some of the messages contained profanities/obscene language.
Hacking state websites and Shutting down X and Phones in Tanzania
Tanzania government shut down X (formerly Twitter) because accounts of key government agencies was hacked and used to spread misinformation. For instance, the X accounts of Tanzania police force and Airtel Tanzania were used to announce the death of the country’s president. This shows how vulnerable the internet assets can be if not secured well.
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While the president of Tanzania was shutting down the X. Her MPs were shutting down their private cell phones because of a torrent of messages and calls from Kenyans. They would not bear the tsunami of communication originating from their neighbor in the north.
It is alleged that some Kenyans hacked government websites. Once specific case is where a Kenyan hacked a government website and appointed himself a Provincial commission. He did not stop there, he went a head and paid himself a salary of Ksh. 60 million.
Respect is needed for a better EAC
There is need for respect if the East African Community has to succeed. We cannot continue this way. Without respect we cannot have free movement of people and goods across the boundaries of the EAC countries. If this goes unchecked, we may end up dissolving the EAC block once again as it happened in 1977. The presidents of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Somalia should sit down and reflect on how they can better promote cohesiveness and peace in the trading block. I don’t expect this to be easy because already there are other sources of tension in the block especially between Rwanda and DRC.
I worked as an intern at the Ministry of East African Community, then headed by Prof. Hellen Sambili minister under Mwai Kibaki administration. At that time I was impressed by the fact that one day EAC will become a monetary union using the same currency. It seems this is a far fetched dream considering what is going on and also due to lack of visionary leaders in these states. Tumboclats!
Ended
